ABGC Volunteer Honored by Fairfax County

Long-time Annandale Boys & Girls Club coach, commissioner and volunteer, Gary Wright, will be honored October 1^st by the Fairfax County Athletic Council and the Department of Neighborhood and Community Services as the 2019 Mason District Champion of Character. Gary was nominated as a parent who “always exemplifies superb sportsmanship and character in youth sports.”

Gary coached his first ABGC team more than 20 years ago, when his family first moved to Annandale and his daughter played Mighty Mites soccer and continued until this year when his son’s high school basketball played their final game. After coaching rec and travel basketball, soccer, t-ball and lacrosse for both boys and girls’ programs, Gary ultimately served as an ABGC commissioner for multiple sports and co-managed the Annandale Youth Lacrosse program for 3 years. Long after his children aged-out, Gary has continued to volunteer his time. Over the years, Gary has been a strong advocate for programs like the Positive Coaching Alliance and a firm believer that youth sports when managed well — meaning players play, coaches mentor and parents cheer from the sidelines – can have a tremendously positive impact on young lives.

ABGC offers our heartfelt congratulations to Gary!

We’ve Been Busy Here at ABGC

There is always a lot happening at the Annandale Boys & Girls Club so we wanted to catch you up on some of this month’s highlights.

 Annandale U-18 Boys Win Soccer State Championship

The AUFC U-18 boys won the U.S. Club State Championship 2-0 last weekend. They now advance to the U.S. Club Regionals in Massachusetts in July.

ABGC Honors 2017 Football Player of the Year

Adhil is an A/B student at Holmes Middle School and has played football with the Annandale Boys & Girls Club since the age of 8.  He is a leader who rushed for 620 yards and threw 5 passes for 130 yards along with 10 solo tackles. Effort is something you can’t coach, either you have it or you don’t, Adhil has it all, brains, size, and the attitude to compete anywhere.

Adhil was voted captain of his team by his teammates and also volunteers at the library reading to younger students and raising funds. Adhil is a student mentor at Parklawn Elementary School and plays on the advanced band at Holmes Middle School. We look forward to watching him develop into a versatile and fearsome football player in the years to come.

National Soccer Team and ABGC Alum

Anna Heilferty has been invited to the USA Under-20 National Team camp at the end of February. Anna was the Patriot League Rookie of the Year at Boston University.

Ready for Lacrosse Season?

Registration is now open for Annandale Youth Lacrosse for boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams.

It’s Playoff Time!

Annandale Alumni Make Their Mark in Soccer

Langley High School (ABGC’s Bo Amato is the coach and Jacob Labovitz is the Men’s All Metropolitan Player of the Year) and Madison High School (Alyssa from VYSA State U-19 Champion Annandale Extreme) won the Region and advance to soccer State Semi-finals.  Jeb Stuart Girls Soccer won their First Conference Championship since Julie Germain’s team in 1977, with Anna Heilferty Conference and All Metropolitan Player of the Year; Mariana Hershner and Chloe Beverina First Team All-Conference, Soccer Festival.

Eryk Williamson played 120 minutes for the USA Under 20 team in the U-20 World Cup Quarter-final 1 – 0 loss.

Annandale Lacrosse Teams in Playoffs 

Annandale Youth Lacrosse has two boys teams and one girls team still playing in the playoffs.  The 14ULB Boys Team, coached by Jeff McCormack is in the NVYLL Finals. They have gone undefeated this season. The 12ULB under Rik Ebbeson is also in the Finals this weekend.  The AYL Girls 7/8 UB team goes on to the next round with a 9 to 7 win.  The girls will play Saturday 3:20pm at Arrow Head Park Field 3 and with a win would play in the championship on Sunday.

Annandale Youth Lacrosse will also be well-represented in the High School Boys State Lacrosse Final on Saturday, June 10^th.  Among the 23 Annandale players on the WT Woodson Varsity team are many who played together at AYL since they first picked up a stick:

WT Woodson Boys Varsity – AYL Alumni

Jack Cameron          M         So

Tomas Duer              D         Jr

Conner Morris          A         So

Matt Fruchterman    A         So

Dean Eby                    D         Sr

Jakob Palmer            M         Sr

Nathan Phan            M         Jr

Taylor Wright           A         So

Connor Cuviello      M         So

Scott Sloan               A         Fr

Keith Garlepp          G         So

Brendan Burns        M         So

Jackson Miller          A         Sr

Alex Olson                M         Sr

Carson Hoffman      A         Fr

Jack Swanton           D         Jr

Payton Andrews      M        So

Drew Olsen               D         Sr

Brody Farr                 M         Fr

Aidan Stoll                D         Fr

Daniel Gaugler         M         So

Cooper Terry             A         So

Mark Murray             D         So

All of these high school playoff games are terrific opportunities for younger players to see their sport played at the high school level and envision their future as high school athletes.

The WT Woodson Varsity lacrosse team will play South County for the State Championship title at 9:30am at Robinson Secondary.  Please come out and support the Woodson boys and all of our ABGC alumni playing throughout the region.

 

It’s Time for Annandale Lacrosse

Welcome to the 2017 Annandale Youth Lacrosse Season

Registration is open for all players in the Annandale, Falls Church, J.E.B Stuart, Lake Braddock and Woodson High School pyramid.

Sign up now because assessments are just weeks away.

BOYS LACROSSE:  January 28th, February 4th and February 11th at South Run Field House

We will be starting up assessments on January 28th, February 4th and February 11th at South Run Indoor Facility so go to our website and REGISTER NOW!

If you have not registered and paid, your son will not be allowed to participate.

For those of you who are new to the program, the assessments allow the coaches to place your son on the appropriate team for their knowledge, skills and abilities. We will have coaches filling out forms on fundamental skills and then we take those evaluations and determine teams at the end of the three assessment periods. For your son to get an accurate evaluation it is IMPERATIVE that they attend ALL THREE Assessments!  Remember, every boy will make a team, there are no “cuts” so tell them to relax and have fun.

GIRLS LACROSSE:  January 21^st Practices begin, with assessments starting on Week 3.  Kids Choice – Annandale

Saturday Mornings 1/21 – 3/21:

7/8th grade 8 – 9:20am

5/6th grade 9:30 – 10:50am

3/4th grade 11 – 12:20am

K-2  11am – 12pm

This is a indoor facility so sneakers are fine.  We will have some loaner sticks and goggles but YOU MUST have a mouth guard. Assessments (starting week 3) group players of similar similar skill level and competition.  Those who are new to the sport require different attention then those who have been playing longer.  Even if your not trying for the advance team, please try to attend as many practices you can.  The more touches a new player gets the faster they will grow.

For K2 there are no assessments but we will start the learning process.

About the upcoming 2016 Spring season…

We’re looking to another terrific season of lacrosse at Annandale!

Register for ABGC Fall Sports

Join the Fastest Growing Sport in America

Not only is lacrosse one of the oldest team sports in North America, having originated among Native American tribes as early as the 1100’s, it’s now the fastest growing youth and collegiate sport in the United States.  Annandale Youth Lacrosse has introduced thousands of local boys and girls to lacrosse over the years and is now gearing up for the 2016 spring season.  Annandale Boys Commissioner, Keith Dalton, says:

“Lacrosse is the perfect sport for young athletes because it offers the best of many other sports wrapped in one: you see the team building of football, the field play of soccer and strategy of basketball, plus it’s so fast the kids and their parents just love it. And ultimately that’s our goal, for our players to have fun!”

Youth lacrosse is a spring sport in Northern Virginia with teams beginning to form soon.   Annandale Youth Lacrosse assessments begin January 30th — these are NOT tryouts — every AYL player makes a team.  Assessments allow organizers to place players with comparable skills together so they can learn lacrosse as a team.

Practices are held twice a week with boys’ games on Saturdays and girls’ games on Sundays. The Annandale program serves girls in grades K-8 and boys from ages U-9 (up to 9 yrs old) to U-15.  You can register now on the Annandale Youth Lacrosse website at annandalelacrosse.org.

Do you have questions about playing lacrosse?  Email us at:  info@annandalelacrosse.org.

ABGC Lax Player Represents VA at Brine Nationals

Taylor Wright, from Annandale, has been named a 2015 Brine National All-Star and selected to represent Virginia at the 2015 Brine National Lacrosse Academy and Brine National Lacrosse Classic to be held in Richmond, June 29-July 2, 2015.

Wright is an Annandale Youth Lacrosse Attacker and a rising Freshman at W.T. Woodson High School.

The Brine National Lacrosse Academy brings the top middle school lacrosse players in the country to one venue, where regional teams are coached by NCAA lacrosse coaches and compete to become national champions.

Think athletic scholarships are a ‘holy grail’? Think again

For many young athletes and their families, the dream of playing college sports is very different from the reality

NBC Sports has this terrific look at what it’s really like to be a Division I collegiate athlete. We highly recommend you read the whole article but here are a few excerpts:

“The NCAA tells high school athletes the chances of getting a scholarship in many sports are around 2 percent.

But does the reality of athletic scholarships match the fantasy? Hardly.

While tens of thousands of athletes will head off to visit colleges this fall hoping to be recruited, only a small fraction will make the cut. Even fewer will get scholarships. And for those who do end up playing in college, whether on scholarship or not, the experience may be very different from what they imagined.

In a survey of college athletes by the NCAA asking what students wished they could have changed about their college sports experience, the most common responses were about time. Another NCAA survey found that a typical NCAA athlete in-season spends 39 hours a week on academics—and 33 hours a week on sports.

There are more opportunities every year for elite competition in youth sports, said Lisa Delpy Neirotti, an associate professor of sports management at George Washington University. “People are feeling the need to go because now they’ve got these college showcases and coaches show up, and if you want to get your kid seen, you’d better be there.”

When parents add up how much money they’ve spent each year, it’s almost equal to a scholarship in some cases, she said. Still, Neirotti has felt the pressure herself. She’s done her share of writing checks and traveling for her own children’s sports involvement.

Don Schumacher, executive director of the National Association of Sports Commissions, agrees that parents who expect youth sports involvement to generate a positive financial return in the form of scholarships are off the mark. “You could spend $5,000 to $10,000 a year for three or four years chasing all these tournaments all year long, where if you saved that money and paid the tuition, you’d be ahead,” he said.

“Athletics in many ways is about helping individuals achieve their dreams, and it is about learning how you can push yourself to become better,” said Perko, who was a star basketball player for Wake Forest. “It’s the question of at what point does it become too much.”

Elissa Cordrey, a Summit, N.J., mother of four lacrosse players who has been through the recruiting process with several of her own children, thinks often about that question. She has seen other young athletes have difficulty filtering offers from different schools, and said players and parents can often be blinded by a program’s success or prestige and fail to think about whether that college is right for them.

Luckily for Cordrey, her children have so far had positive experiences at their Division 1 and Division 3 schools. But she is under no illusions about what high-level athletics involve.

“My kids love it and we are thrilled they are making the commitment,” she said. But if the child is playing for the sake of a scholarship, and not for love of the game, be careful, she warned. “Keep your eyes wide open. It’s not high school athletics. In some ways, it’s really exciting. But if your child’s not passionate, you are going to have a lot of teary phone calls.”

Dog Days of Summer Winding Down – Fall on the Way!

 

We know, we know…you don’t want summer to end but school is around the corner and so is the start of all of ABGC’s fall programs. Registration is open so sign up TODAY before it’s too late for:

• Cheerleading
• Field Hockey
• Football
• Recreation Soccer Pre-K to Grade 4
• Recreation Soccer U11-19
• Top Soccer (for children with disabilities)
• T-Ball

Annandale Lax Registration Underway

Annandale Lacrosse is proud to announce we’ve received  a Sportmanship Grant from US Lacrosse and the Positive Coaching Alliance for the 2014 Spring season!  Through this grant AYL will receive two workshops hosted by PCA – one for our Annandale coaches and another for our parents.

In case you’re not familiar with the Positive Coaching Alliance, this organization is the nation’s leading non-profit devoted to creating positive, character-building youth sports experiences.  When you consider that over 70% of youth athletes quit sports by the time their 13 because it just “isn’t fun anymore” it’s clear something needs to be done to re-adjust our priorities as youth athletics coaches and administrators.  PCA’s  motto is  “Better Athletes, Better People” and we at Annndale Youth Lacrosse share their goals of encouraging competitive play that also allows our athletes to grow as people and teammates.

Time to REGISTER!

At Annandale Youth Lacrosse our motto is Practice Hard — Play Strong — Love Lacrosse.  Join us for our 2014 Spring season and we’re convinced you’ll learn to love the nation’s fastest growing sport as much as we do!

Registration for boys and girls, ages 7 to 14, is now underway.  Go to http://annandalelacrosse.com for more information or email us at annandaleyouthlacrosse@gmail.com.